Lagoon

by Nnedi Okorafor

But I stayed to bear witness. This was something I could tell my grandchildren about, if I lived. I was witnessing a miracle. My days of fraud . . . even as I knelt there under the table, I knew they were over.

But this woke me up. The coming of Ijele. I am not being melodramatic and I am not crazy. And I am not out of danger. But I will never practice fraud again. Never. I swear. As I cowered under that table and watched Ijele and the man whom I now believed was one of the aliens look at each other, I felt this great swell of pride and love for Nigeria. I felt patriotism. I would die for it. I would live for it. I would create for it. This was real. Tears were streaming down my face.

“I heard it was getting crazy on Victoria Island,” the black slacks woman said, nodding. “Riots, idiots burning everything, people are posting it all on the internet. I was watching with my BlackBerry.” My wife sucked her teeth. “Well, how different is all that from what happens every day? Didn’t that ‘luxury-bus-robbery-turned-tragic-accident’ happen near here?”

Unlike most, I didn’t slow down. I moved quickly. I didn’t want to see.

“You’re a what?” I heard my wife screech. I’d tuned out of their conversation and now I tuned back in. My wife and the woman in the black slacks were staring at the tall Nollywood-looking woman. “You’ve been talking to me for the last half hour,” the Nollywood woman said. “Do I look dangerous?” I made eye contact with my wife before turning to look at the tall woman. She was . . . one of them. She looked so normal. Except . . . it’s hard to explain. There was a flicker of oddness about her if you looked long enough. Like she was more than what she was and less than what she was presenting, like a double-exposed photo.

In that moment, I understood in my gut, she was not human. She was not earthly. She was something completely other. But she was not evil, either. I felt dizzy but I had to stay alert. For the sake of my family.

Let me tell you something – that woman, she was from outside this earth, yes. But that thing, that thing that was haunting the road, it was from here and had probably been here since these roads were built, maybe even before then. I am not a Christian or a Muslim, or maybe I am both. But I also believe in the mysteries we can never understand, especially in my country. This thing was one of them.

“Why?” the woman asked it. “Why do you do this? Why now?” “I collect bones,” it said. The voice sounded blistering and wet. I felt the vibration of it deep within me. It made me feel like nothing but meat, like it could shake that meat from my bones, the bones it wanted. “I have always collected bones. I am the road.” “Collect my bones and then never collect again,” the woman said. “I am everything and I am nothing. Take me and you will be free of your appetite.” Everything around me seemed to go silent. I couldn’t even hear the grass rustling. Can you imagine? Never in my entire life had I witnessed such a selfless act. She was not from earth. Yet still. I thought of Nigeria’s worst diseases – pervasive corruption and unsafe roads. The one who had spoken through my wife’s phone was right. She and her people were indeed agents of change. I could feel the change in me then, while I knelt there. I’m sure I was not the only one, either. I feel it now. I watched it take her. I owed it to her to not turn away.

I grew up in Athens, Georgia. Up until three years ago, the farthest I’d ever gone from home was Jackson, Mississippi to attend Jackson State University and study psychology. I was the first in my family to go to college. And by my junior year, to my mother’s horror, I also became the first to record a hip-hop album. Never in a million years could I have imagined I’d wind up on the streets of Lagos during some sort of riot.

This was how I actually saw it. I saw the sonic boom. I swear to God, the very air shivered. I saw it coming up the street.

“Yes, you saw what you saw and I saw it, too,” he said. “It’s going to get really interesting here soon, you’ll see. It’s a great time to be in Africa! And at least you can say that you saw it all begin.” He pointed a gnarled finger at me. “You can say you were there. That is not something most young American girls can say. If you ever make it back to your country, make sure you tell them about your country here. Just because you are American does not make you American. This is your home.”

Boy, did I have a story to tell my mother. Legba, the god of the crossroads was alive and well in the country of his origin. Wow. I just might write a song about this, too, if I survive. I’ll call it “African Chaos”. And if there is one city that rhymes with “chaos”, it is Lagos.

The mad woman. Why had she done it? Ayodele said that the woman had lost hope. That wasn’t good enough for Adaora. That poor boy.

The President’s mouth fell open. “Karl Marx,” he whispered. “I . . . I . . .” “I know,” Ayodele said, in a manly voice. She stepped closer to him, graceful in her man’s body. “You believe in Marxism, yet you are too powerless to enact it.”

“You are evil!” Zena shouted from behind him. “I am not,” Ayodele said flatly. “I am change.”

“How did you take over all the mobile phones?” the President asked. “It wasn’t just the mobile phones and it wasn’t just me. They helped,” she said, motioning to Adaora, Anthony and Agu. “So did Adaora’s offspring.” Ayodele continued. “As did my people. As did your people. It is a matter of connecting and communicating.” She grinned. “And your technology is simple, easily manipulated.” “And yours is not?” “We are technology, Mr President. And no, we are not easily manipulated.” “What do you want?” “We do not want to rule, colonize, conquer or take. We just want a home. What is it you want?” He paused. “To be alive again.” “I will make it so.”

She feels it like she felt the first breath of life when she was born. She remembers the moment of her birth clearly. She had opened her eyes and seen little. But then she chirped, and the sound found her mother. Then the others. Then the cave. And a few weeks later, when she echolocated the night, she thought she’d die from the beauty of the trees and the land. Now she is in the middle of . . . of red, pink, green, yellow, blue, periwinkle. She has no words for color because she is a bat and bats do not see colors. But she sees them now.

Then everything is dead quiet. No air. No sound. No earth. She is in space. Farther, deeper.

Maybe she is trying to leave the earth. She isn’t sure. She isn’t thinking about it.

The pilot of the Nigerian president’s plane has no clue that the plane he is flying has just killed the most enlightened bat on earth. After obliterating this bat as it passes, the plane flies on toward the airport on the strangest night in the city of Lagos’s history.

she even prayed to the Christian god she didn’t believe in and the Muslim god she’d never learned about.

Today, as the sun rises, there may as well be a sign on all Lagos beaches that reads: “Here There Be Monsters”. This has always been the truth, but today it is truer. They must understand this. But I hope they do not understand any of it. If they do, then they will not step on to that boat and the story will not continue. My strong webbing will snap. The story will stop growing and spreading.

I am Udide, the narrator, the story weaver, the Great Spider.

The chaos will be on display. The sun rises.

She chuckled. “You know what they also say? That it’s not the ocean that is attracted to this place. That it is Mami Wata who loves this building. Do you know Mami Wata?” “Yes,” he said. Mami Wata was the goddess of all marine witches. She looked squarely at him. “This is my favorite building, o.” Many things happened to Father Oke at once. He felt his heart break. Why had he slapped that woman so hard yesterday morning? Why had he

slapped her at all? Twice in one night he had met a woman who was not really a woman. The first had been from outer space. This second was from the earth’s water. For the first time in his life, Father Oke truly realized that he lived in a glass palace, while others around him lived in a ghetto. He gave up. Father Oke gave in. They left the Glass House, crossing the empty street. They were heading toward the beach. No one ever saw Father Oke again.

All were young men, many with desperate looks on their faces. To make the situation sadder, there was a camera crew filming them, and several well-dressed journalists interviewing people.

“Last night,” the President said, switching to Standard English, “our biggest city ate itself. Now it is full and ready to give birth to itself. That is all I have to say on that.” “Where have you been?” a male reporter asked. “Sick. But now I am well.” “Where are you going?” “To see if I can make this better.

It was black and looked about the size of a house. As it fell back into the water, all three of its huge tentacles slapped the surface, creating large waves that rocked the boat. Adaora shuddered. She could name most cephalopods down to their local and scientific names. But what she’d just seen didn’t have a name.

Agu wanted to tell the President to stay calm, that his country needed him to remain on the boat, meet the Elders, but reason was a stupid thing to request. If Adaora had fallen off the boat, he’d do the same thing the President was doing, and nothing anyone said would change his mind. So Agu held the President of Nigeria with all his might. Anthony put his arms around the two of them and did the same.

story of her birth she’d heard so many times from her parents. That. She hung on to that. It was in the knowing. She knew. She stepped over the side of the boat, out onto the water. “No!” Hawra said. “What are you . . . ?” Adaora’s feet landed on the water and the water held her up.

And it seemed the entire ocean had decided to come after them. Large fish, armored fish, spiked fish, monstrous sharks, a giant swordfish; he even thought he saw something that looked like a whale. All were bearing down on the boat, on him. Why? What had they done? He knew the answer. He, Adaora, Anthony – everyone else – they were human. They didn’t belong here in the deep. So they would die here and it would be right. Best to leave these waters to the ocean animals, and the aliens.

“We’re Nigerians,” Agu said. “Just Nigerians.”

“And one Ghanaian.”

“You saved each other but I saved you all.

Done by whom? Adaora thought. She knew the answer. The sea creatures. They wanted the water to be “clean”. “Clean” for sea life . . . which meant toxic for modern, civilized, meat-eating, clean-water-drinking human beings. Shit, she thought. I’m going to die out here.

Water is life. Aman Iman. Water. Adaora was in water.

Adaora realized several things at once. She was breathing water. She was not alone. She could see what was happening. She could hear it, too.

Adaora had always loved the water. And she didn’t want to die of whatever pollutants were in the water. Yes, it was.

“Who am I?” she whispered. Her voice was her own, albeit rough. When she opened her eyes, she was looking into Agu’s. A tear was falling down his cheek. He was shaking from the strain of her weight. “Something new,” he said. “Something old,” Anthony said. He laughed. “Something borrowed, more than gold, something true, never sold, goddamn aliens too fuckin’ bold. Chale, see I spit am!”

She paused, fighting the voice that told her never to speak of such taboos. The knowledge that made her feel like she was evil. The stigma that burned brightest when she thought about her husband’s constant accusations of witchcraft. And the fact that after all her denials, maybe she was a witch. Well, she was certainly something. “I was born with webbed feet and hands,” she blurted.

“But . . . maybe it’s always been there. Beneath the surface.”

“What are we?” Adaora asked, after a moment. “We’re people,” Agu said. He looked at Anthony. “You can make a sonic boom.” To Adaora, he said, “You can create some sort of force field. I have super-human strength. And we all walked into each other’s lives just as aliens invaded Lagos.” “Not a coincidence,” Anthony said. “Na the work of de universe.” “It’s the work of something,” Agu said. Adaora shivered. “My father would have said it’s the work of the gods.”

Adaora, Agu and Anthony met with the Elders. There were eight of them. And that is all that Adaora, Agu and Anthony will ever remember about that thirty minutes of their lives.

Why? Adaora thought. Why why why? Why was Ayodele bleeding? Why was she not changing? Why had she allowed them to beat her? Why had they beaten her? She continued to hold them back, as she pressed Ayodele’s broken body into her own. “Witchcraft,” one of the men grunted. Bang! One of the soldiers must have fired at her.

She’d experienced so much humanity in so little time.

“I saw you first. It started with you,” Ayodele whispered. “My people sent me for a reason. I’ve known all along . . .” Blood dribbled from her lips and Adaora shuddered. “Your people. They wanted to use me, kidnap me, kill me . . .” “I’m sorry,” Adaora said. “We are better than that.”

“You people need help on the outside but also within,” she said. “I will go within . . . Adaora . . . let go of me . . . cover your ears.” “Why?” “Trust me.” “Ayodele, please.” “You’ll all be a bit . . . alien.”

Ayodele mouthed something to Adaora and she understood. “Let go,” Ayodele had said. And Adaora let the force field drop as she squeezed her eyes shut. GBOOOM!

She could almost see it in her mind. And everyone was inhaling it. Everyone in Lagos was craving garden eggs. Ayodele. What had she done?